The Parking Lot

Friday, August 15, 2008

In the early 1980s, afraid of being mistaken for the Kingsway's only Volvo-driving socialists, my parents acquired the grandest of American sedans - the Oldsmobile 98. Built at Lansing Car Assembly, the Olds was painted black with beige leather interior (useful when driving kids in wet bathing suits), a roaring V8, and industrial strength shocks - a special request by the previous owner. This boat ferried us up and down Highways 401, 37, 7, and 17 for many years. 20 years later, on mornings when my own boat is sailing over the 401's bumps near the Ajax Go-Train station, I often consider how that Olds 98 must have caught air over the same stretch.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

My apologies for being off the radar of late, I had some exam-writing to do.

Moments ago, I weighed in on a discussion about chicken wings between the Road Hammer and the Webber. The Hammer alleges that Local Heroes, an Ottawa sports bar, disguises turkey wings as poulet. These wings, retched as they are, are too small to be turkey wings and are more likely pried off a seagull or pigeon. The Parking Lot's picks for best chicken wings:

Sunday, June 17, 2007

In 1989 the state of football in Ottawa couldn't have been any worse. It had been eight years since the Rough Riders had been to the Grey Cup and thirteen years since they'd won it. Coming off Super Season '88, when they managed to win only two games, the desperate team hired marketing superstar Jo-Anne Polack as general manager. Polack poached free agent Damon Allen from Edmonton where he couldn't escape the long shadows of Matt Dunigan and Tracy Ham. Allen as saviour became the focus of Polack's "Rider Rage" marketing campaign, along with running back Orville Lee and kicker shanker Dean Dorsey. 1989 also saw the arrival of one of the worst coaches ever to pace a CFL sideline, Steve Goldman.

The Riders were en route to a Super Season '88 sequel, with a 2-11 record, when Allen went down with torn ligaments in his throwing hand. With two games left in the season, the Riders' record was 2-14, back-up Willie Gillus was injured, stop-gap Tony Kimbrough had proven hopeless, and a defensive back had been taking snaps from centre. Polack went searching for hope to salvage "Rider Rage" and it came in the form of Ken Hobart. As he had done at Idaho and in Hamilton, Hobart stepped up to beat Winnipeg in back-to-back games, Ottawa's first consecutive wins in half a decade and doubling Ottawa's win total.

The next season, every time Damon Allen faltered, the "Ho-bart" chants rained down from Lansdowne Park's south side upper deck where Byron Smith, "President of the Southsiders for Life", whipped up the ham 'n eggers into an anti-Allen frenzy. Frustrated watching the hapless Allen, Hobart would stir the crowd by donning his helmet and warming up on the sidelines. Goldman, who had never wanted Hobart back for the 1990 season, made the worst of many bad decisions when he released the fan favourite. For the 1991 season, Ken Hobart was back home in Idaho, Allen threw 31 picks, and Goldman was canned after four games, but the southsiders were relentless with their chants of "Ho-bart". To this day fans torment Allen with these heckles.

Despite only starting for one year and being active for less than five, Hobart concluded his CFL career as the leader among quarterbacks in rushing.

Today Ken Hobart lives in Lewiston, Idaho, with is wife and three children where he sells billboard advertising and real estate. He remains active in football as the colour commentator for University of Idaho Vandals' football and supervising the development of his son Zack, a quarterback himself.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

I've recently discovered a hideous term: buy-off. This awkward combination of "buy-in" and "sign-off" is used in the following manner, "we'll need buy-off from three people before we can send the document".

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Following his success at Idaho, Ken Hobart rode the bench in 1984 for the USFL's Denver Gold, throwing for a touchdown and 576 yards, and rushing for another 160 yards and a touchdown. In the NFL supplemental draft that year, Hobart was drafted 10th overall by the New York Jets, ahead of future NFL stars Ricky Sanders, Gary Clark, and Mel Gray.

Although he later regretted the decision, Hobart never took a snap in the NFL, landing in Hamilton for the 1985 CFL season where he lit up the league as a rookie. Rushing for an unprecedented 928 yards, he won the Jeff Russell Memorial Trophy for the most outstanding player in the eastern division. To this day, Hobart shares the record for most touchdown passes in a playoff game, having thrown five on November 17, 1985 in a win over Montreal in the eastern final. In a championship loss to the BC Lions, Hobart never quit, scrambling for his life and throwing three touchdowns.

Hobart was replaced by Mike Kerrigan the next season, but took home a Grey Cup ring as a member of that championship team, playing a couple of series late in the game. Eventually Hobart was cut loose by the Ti-Cats and bounced around, stopping in Regina long enough for a cup of coffee before returning to Idaho for what he thought was the quiet life of a retired CFLer in the American west.

Friday, June 08, 2007

One of the highlights of visiting my grandparents in Ottawa as a child was dinner at the the Green Valley on Prince of Wales Drive. Before it was destroyed by fire on New Year's Eve a few years ago, the Green Valley served the best continental menu on... well, the continent, for almost seventy years. For an eight year-old, it was the best of everything - the quiet evening drive through the Experimental Farm, past the barns where my grandfather and I had visited the animals earlier in the day, exploring the gift store's toy section while we waited for our table, a Shirley Temple cocktail with a plastic monkey hanging from the rim, the monster cheeseburger and thick-cut fires, and - of course - the Mickey Mouse ice cream sundae with green maraschino cherry eyes staring up at you as you dug in.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

To celebrate the opening of Canadian Football League training camps this week, the Parking Lot is pleased to pay tribute to a long-forgotten, but half-decent quarterback, Ken Hobart.

Before Damon Allen was professional football’s all-time leading passer, he was a hapless goat who threw enough interceptions to make him a pariah among Ottawa Rough Rider fans in his first season with the team in 1989. Later that season, from the potato patches of Idaho, Ken Hobart emerged as the saviour for the ham 'n eggers sitting in the south side stands at Lansdowne Park by winning two games, thus doubling Ottawa's wins for a respectable 4-14 season. Long after Hobart had returned to the simple life in Lewiston, Idaho, Southsiders would dog Allen with extended moans of "Ho-bart, Ho-bart". The Southsiders, originality not their strong suit, continued hurl this epithet at Allen's successors who had no idea what they were referring to.

Although it's his off-the-tractor performance in 1989 that many of us remember, Ken Hobart was more than just a flash-in-the-pan back-up. He was a natural athlete and leader who came through for his teams, making do with the situations given to him. As a walk-on at the University of Idaho, Hobart established himself as a prolific running quarterback in coach Jerry Davitch's option-play offense. When Davitch was replaced by Dennis Erickson and his spread passing offense, many wondered whether Hobart, who had barely thrown the ball under Davitch, could keep his starting role. Quickly adapting to the new Vandals' offense, Hobart emerged as a talented passer, being named All-American in 1983 en route to becoming only the second player in NCAA history to pass for 10,000 yards, setting 12 Division I-AA records, and crushing rival Boise State 45-24. Today, the "Kamiah Kid" is ranked the 45th greatest athlete from Idaho by Sports Illustrated.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Fishing Jones is one of the web's premier fishing blogs, doubling as therapy for Pete McDonald, a self-confessed fishing addict. As a technical editor for Boating Magazine, Pete's extensive travels give him many fishing adventures to share, be them in Bimini, Alabama, or Michigan. While he works in New York where he chases bluefish and albacore tuna off Long Island, Pete's home waters are in Florida and his most passionate posts are ones where he recounts trips to his secret peacock bass locations. One of the dangers in reading Fishing Jones is that Pete will periodically post videos that'll make you wish you were fishing for blue marlin instead of sitting in that meeting that starts in ten minutes.

Friday, June 01, 2007

The Iv'y Rod & Gun Club assembled yesterday on the banks of the mighty Grand River at Caledonia, a town known as much for its indian wars as for its warm-water fishery. We all played our part yesterday - me stomping around mid-stream to spook the fish, RG catching every tree in Haldimand County on his back casts, Uncle Alec sleeping in the dirt like a true trout bum, and Pastor T actually catching fish. Though our quarry was catfish and we kept catching (and releasing) out-of-season smallmouth bass, the fact that my wild false casting didn't put a fly in my ear made this adventure as an unqualified success.

Monday, May 28, 2007

The City of Toronto has decided that it will compete directly with Canadian Tire and Home Hardware by selling garbage cans to reduce household refuse. Well, it's not really competing since residents will be compelled to buy one of the City's receptacles. One's garbage collection fee will be the price of the container, a function of its size. While I'm a fan of user fees in general, am I the only one who thinks that a $300+ jumbo container will last no more than two garbage days before it's nicked?

Friday, May 25, 2007

Tonight on Buffalo's WGR 550, Chris "Bulldog" Parker asked whether Buffalo Sabres fans can, in good conscience, root for the Ottawa Senators in the Stanley Cup finals. Bulldog himself hopes that the Senators are annihilated because, although he loves Canada because he loves hockey, he's too bitter about the Sabres' defeat in the semi-final. Seems counter-intuitive to me, since what does that say about Buffalo if the Sens are swept by Anaheim?

The humiliation for Bytown, however, was when the Team 1200's Lee "The Franchise" Versage called in from Ottawa to plead for Bulldog and the Buffalo fans to cheer for the Sens because the two cities have so much in common. No they don't, Lee, and to steal a line from a very good friend of mine, your call embarrassed me and it embarrassed yourself.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Partisan political punditry used to represent the worst in televised politics. Discussions between politicians or their advisors are pointless since they seldom answer questions or address one another's arguments, preferring to parrot the party line. A rare exception was a panel on CBC radio's Morningside on which Stephen Lewis, Dalton Camp, and Eric Kierans had candid discussions about Canadian politics in the 1990s. My guess is that they never received their parties' talking points because party hacks thought they were all dead.

These panels used to be the intellectual basement for televised politics, until pseudo-celebrities started debating serious issues on this gong show.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Last week I reviewed the correct pronunciation of Ottawa. Today we look at Toronto, a city name butchered by Canadians and foreigners alike. "Toronto" is pronounced "Tronno", like the 1982 Bruce Boxleitner flick with a "no" on the end. When said with a clipped southern Ontario accent, it comes out sounding like "Chronno", with a "ch" sound as in "chips". While many wince at the "To-RANT-o" commonly heard in places like Windsor, the real fingers-on-the-chalkboard version is the over-enunciated "Toe-RON-Toe" employed by the city's mayor, David Miller, who is not actually from the city and should generally be ignored.Photo credit: JamSki

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Movie adaptations of comic books are good when there are lots of fights with ghoulish villains. In Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man fights with decidedly un-ghoulish villains played by Forman from That '70s Show and Lowell from Wings. That's when there is any fighting at all. Most of the movie has the goofy-grinned Peter Parker gushing about his feelings for Mary Jane Watson and having heart-to-hearts with Aunt May. It reminded me of last year's Superman snooze-fest. On a go/no-go scale, I give the Tobey Maguire-Topher Grace Battle Royal a "no-go".

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

For election Sunday in Paris we bought baguettes and pastries and picnicked at Luxembourg Gardens, the expansive park that flanks Luxembourg Palace, home of the French Senate. In cities where most residents are apartment dwellers, parks are the hub of daytime activity. In Toronto, where most live in houses, they're primarily for dogs.

The fountain was full of model sailboats that children pushed into the breeze and while their parents fed french bread to pigeons. Back in the shade, fastblitz chess matches drew the interest of tourists who were mesmerized by the flurry of hands and moves as time ran down on the three-minute timers. My favourite activity were the games of pétanque, a bocce-like game, where metal balls are thrown as close as possible to a marker. Some players are skilled take-out specialists, making seemingly-impossible shots to dispose of another team's ball with a deafening clank. I had previously thought this game to exist only on the Cosby show.Photo credit: Hello Hillary

I've had all that I can take of those geniuses on Buffalo's WGR 550 butchering the name of my hometown. "Ottawa" is not pronounced "Attawa", as though you're slapping your 300-lb buddy on the back, saying "attaboy" for scarfing down his 10,000th chicken wing at the Anchor Bar. It's "Ot-uh-wuh" and the first syllable is pronounced as though you're saying "awe". The end of the word, however, is not pronounced "awe", it's more like "wha", as in "wha the... how did the Sabres get swept?"

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The success of Hee Haw's guest blogging last week has convinced me that this space is enhanced with voices other than my own. The Webber contributed this to the Parking Lot:

I went to see military historian Jack Granatstein last Thursday night at the Toronto Public Library, for a lecture on his new book, Who's War Is It? How Canada Can Survive in the Post - 9-11 World. It was a really good lay-of-the-land speech about the state of Canada's military and how Canada thinks too much in terms of values when it comes to international affairs and not enough about interests.

It appeared to be a good night out for the residents of the nearby retirement home, but predictably a few trouble makers showed up to vent their frustrations about the US, George Bush, and the environment. Professor Granatstein, no doubt used to this after teaching at York for 30 years, took them all on with vigor. He had many good lines, but there's one that I must share...

Someone claimed that Tony Blair was quitting because he is so unpopular over the Iraq War, citing Labour's losses in the recent municipal votes, to which Professor Jack laid the smack down with, "Did you vote for David Miller because you hate Stephen Harper? People don't vote in municipal elections on national issues. They vote for garbage pick-up."

The Hugh Grant-Drew Barrymore romantic comedy, Music and Lyrics, was the in-flight movie en route to France, so I was a captive audience. Grant plays a has-been pop star with one shot to get off the Holiday Inn '80s Night circuit by writing a song for a teen diva. His disturbed plant-waterer Barrymore is recruited as his lyricist and, over late night writing sessions, romance blossoms, and then withers when they disagree over changes requested by the pop princess. This follows the romantic comedy template: courtship, hook-up, break-up, reunion, and falls apart at the break-up over a trivial conflict (especially since we all know that Hugh Grant is capable of much worse). There are a few chuckles at the beginning of the film thanks to Hugh Grant's skill with self deprecation, but otherwise, on a go/no-go scale Music and Lyrics is a tedious "no-go".

Monday, May 14, 2007

Traveling is a great opportunity to sample new restaurants and cuisines. Not everyone feels this way. Witness this exchange with a fellow tourist from Boston in the middle of a Paris street where we were browsing menus:

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Email was frustrating in France thanks to the bizarre AZERTY keyboard used in that country. Several letters are reversed, punctuation marks are impossible to find, and the shift key must be pressed to type numbers. Using it is what I imagine post-stroke recovery to be like.

Friday, May 11, 2007

For those socialists who are distraught or rioting over last weekend's defeat in France, I say fear not. Scotland is more than willing to bear the distinction of becoming northern Europe's economic basket case.

On our first night in Paris we dined on French sausages at Montmantre and then climbed to le Tire Bouchon Piano Bar for beer and wine. On our descent, the blue light of the Royal-Sarkozy presidential debate flickered from the windows of every restaurant, bar, and corner store, with as many as twenty customers crammed around thirteen-inch sets.

I caught the last half-hour of the marathon debate and it reminded me of how much more I enjoy Quebec leaders debates in Canada to either the federal or Ontario versions. French politicians, animated and charismatic, seem to directly engage one another and speak from the heart rather than their notes. Over 20 million people tuned into the debate and, from what I could make out, they were treated to a meaningful discourse.

Election fever exceeded any I've seen in North America. Everywhere we went, people were arguing over the Sarko-Sego question. Election coverage pre-empted prime time television programming as the candidates swung across the country for the last three days of rallies. On Saturday, when campaigning was to have stopped, flag-waving young socialists paraded past a cafe where we were eating and got into it with a young couple drinking espressos.

In a grocery store on election day, we were accosted by a man asking whether we'd voted. When he learned that we were Canadian, he pumped his fists and declared triumphantly that it was "a great day for France. For twenty-five years we've had some sort of socialism, and now we will have twenty-five years of business!".

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to my cousin George for his able stewardship over the past week. Thanks to Hee Haw, the word "hockey" actually appeared in a non-derisive post and I now know that I'm not half the gentleman I thought I was. Thank you, George, for bringing your sharp wit and subtle sophistication to some of the Parking Lot's most entertaining posts yet. I hope you'll do it again soon.

Before I run off to clear my ears from one of those signature Air France landings, I'd like to respond to a comment left last week by the Webber, who wrote "I am pretty sure David would never have mentioned Voltaire or extinction in his posts!". Well, just for you, Sean, I snapped this picture at Voltaire's tomb. He's definitely extinct.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

I am handing the reigns back over to David’s more capable hands. It has been an honour writing on the Parking Lot this past week and I can honestly say that I have a new respect for bloggers. Both writer and editor combined, the blogger has to determine whether a piece is in fact interesting before even sitting down to write it. I’d like to thank Rubber Duck, who I deferred to when I didn’t trust my own editorial instincts. I once read a short story called “The Writer takes a Vacation”. The point of the story was that the writer never takes a vacation. There’s always another chapter, another article, another post to think about. Let’s hope Dave had a few moments of real vacation in Paris. It will probably be quite evident after his first few posts that he didn’t.

For my birthday, I received a book published by Brooks Brothers called “How to be a Gentleman.” I thought I would share my favourite instructions.

"A gentleman knows how to make a grilled cheese at 2am and an omelet at 7am."

"If a gentleman attends a great many bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, he buys his own yarmulke."

"Unless he is a Texas Ranger or a cattle rancher, a gentleman does not wear cowboy boots with a suit."

"When a gentleman feels the urge to colour his moustache, he shaves his moustache off."

"When a gentleman outgrows his clothes, he gives them away to charity. He does not pretend that someday he will lose weight. When, and if he does lose weight, he certainly will not want to celebrate by wearing out of date clothes."

"A gentleman has never been seated beside a boring person at dinner."

"A gentleman may not be able to dance a samba, but he should be capable of a fox-trot, which is almost like not dancing at all."

"A gentleman reads a newspaper, preferably the New York Times, at least three times a week."

"A gentleman always carries a handkerchief. Because it is always clean, he readily lends it to others."

"When a gentleman realizes that his fly is open, he zips up-on the spot, if convenient."

"When a gentleman quotes Shakespeare, he does not give the name of the author. If the quotation is not quite accurate, all the better yet."

Monday, May 07, 2007

The expression “keeping up with the Joneses” has an unlikely origin. It is said to have first been used in reference to American novelist Edith Wharton’s great-aunts Mary and Rebecca Jones, who horrified the rest of their austere society by building a mansion in uptown Manhattan. So next time you use that expression in reference to your neighbour’s new patio furniture, think of what those poor New Yorkers were up against.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

At the beginning of the playoffs I went for a run in downtown Toronto wearing my Ottawa Senators jersey. I was honked at, yelled at, and given the finger. One car even followed me a half block so the angry driver could ensure that I caught all his expletives. Yet when I went for a walk in my Sens jersey yesterday the response was considerably different. In fact, the only responses I elicited were friendly ones. The comparison isn't entirely fair. Running in a Senators jersey is a more antagonistic statement than walking. A hockey sweater isn't your everyday running attire and I had clearly gone out of my way to lord it over disappointed Leafs fans. Nonetheless, it’s apparent that Torontonians are reconciling themselves to the fact that the hard-working Senators, Canada's remaining hope for the Cup, are a very likeable team.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Between the funky keyboard and Hee Haw's momentum I wasn't going to blog until I came home, but by then I fear a great tragedy will have taken place. France, it seems, is on the eve of electing a president with a belief in the free market. Where is Michael Moore to save the French from themselves, and interfere with the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation?

Friday, May 04, 2007

I’ve never been one to embrace change but I’m not in the minority when I say that the re-designed Globe and Mail is a failure. The Globe is Canada’s most serious newspaper. You used to be able to tell that from five feet away. It looked substantial and assured of itself. It had a visual quality that insisted it be read. But the new design has squandered all that. The once airy masthead is crowded, the layout has been cluttered with lines, and the new sans serif font makes the paper look perfectly at home beside the tabloids. A dignified old lady has become a petulant little child. The only redeeming or at least understandable change is the paper’s smaller size. All the big dailies are going this way and it’s easier to handle on buses and subways. Still, one of the best things about the weekend was picking up that goliath Saturday edition, bursting with newness, and putting it under your arm.

What's new and exciting

Happy Father's Day, Happy Summer.

Regular Features

Reviews: Every Tuesday I review, on a go/no-go scale, I review whatever CD, movie, or cheeseburger I've tried lately.
Rants: I don't love everything, so on Thursdays I excoriate those things I don't.
Everything I Love: God created french fries, country music, and discount stores, so we end the week on a high note.